Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Learning & development

Training budgets: how to get the best from your budgets

by Richard Chappell 13 Jun 2008
by Richard Chappell 13 Jun 2008

The economic slowdown means training and L&D budgets are under pressure. Richard Chappell argues that L&D managers must therefore prove the training they organise really does deliver.

As the person responsible for your organisation’s training programmes, one of your key objectives will be ensuring your company gets the best results from its training investment. As such there are a couple of vital questions that need to be considered:



  • Is the training each person receives going to make a significant contribution to improving their value to the organisation through increased efficiency?
  • What processes can you put in place to measure any performance increases?

It’s crucial that you get the answers to these questions before the training intervention starts, and before you choose your training provider, otherwise it might be too late. Following are some checks you can put in place to help you maximise your return on investment.

Feedback is paramount

Don’t just rely on pass rates and qualitative feedback to measure training effectiveness as this isn’t going to give you an accurate measurement. Work with a provider that has sound systems in place to provide you with post-course feedback.

We use a post-course survey three months after course completion, once delegates have had time in the workplace to implement what they learned. In many cases â€“ depending of course on the type of training â€“ you should be looking for a perceived productivity increase of no less than 30%.

Consider what measurements you’ll put in place prior to instigating the training programme. If you were planning a training programme for a team of project managers, you could measure the project completion rates, and number of projects completed to time and on budget, pre- and post-training.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Key points



  • Identify in advance the benefits or achievements you want to get from the training, work with your training provider to ensure these goals are built into the programme, are achieved, measured, and then applied in the workplace.
  • Check that your training provider not only has a structured approach to providing course feedback but that they also share this information with you. 
  • Check that your provider reviews and updates courses regularly and intelligently, so your people are learning precisely what will help them do their job more effectively today, not yesterday.
  • Look carefully at the training environment. Classrooms need to do more than look good. They need to facilitate the learning experience, exploiting technology and practical group activities to immerse the delegates in a simulated ‘real world’ environment.
  • Ensure the instructors have current and ongoing experience of applying the subjects they teach. The best people to train your people are obviously those who still practise what they teach in the real world â€“ so be wary of ‘full-time trainers’. 
  • And, if your organisation operates on a global scale, it’s essential to confirm that your training partner has the people and the infrastructure in place to deliver the results you need consistently in all the locations, across all skillsets.
  • Finally, always ask a prospective training provider what steps they would take if you’re not happy with the training they have provided. Your training programme should definitely be giving you a measurable return â€“ and these few simple steps should help you ensure you are getting the very best possible out of the budget available.

Richard Chappell is managing director of IT training provider Learning Tree

Richard Chappell

previous post
Essex firefighters suffer body blow to image after injury list revelations
next post
Teambuilding: Thanks for the memories – and the smoothie making

You may also like

Investing in skills when budgets are tight

12 May 2025

Leading with honest feedback: A responsibility in recruitment

24 Apr 2025

High-level apprenticeship spend doubles in five years

16 Apr 2025

Number of SMEs hiring staff in decline

10 Apr 2025

Gen Z and ‘conscious unbossing’: how can HR...

7 Apr 2025

How to build a commercially-minded workforce

3 Apr 2025

Why the apprenticeship shakeup is good news for...

20 Mar 2025

Scrapping NHS England could affect critical training, warn...

14 Mar 2025

Employee engagement: Growing disconnect between effort and recognition,...

13 Mar 2025

Schneider Electric doubles ex-military green skills scheme

13 Mar 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+