Keeping your skills up to date in a recession

With corporate budgets for training and recruitment being cut or even wiped out completely as the recession continues the question is being asked what is happening to the key knowledge and skills that are being lost?  In an article in People Management (April 2009) 'Companies could be repeating mistakes of the last recession', Lucy Philips quotes Boston Consulting Group figures that state that whilst cutting back on recruitment worked OK for companies in the last recession cutting back on training didn't.  It begs the question that if you cut back on both how does a company hold on to the expertise that has given it key competitive advantage?  If we are not careful we will end up with skills gaps that will make it difficult to progress when we do come out of the recession.

An interesting article has recently appeared in the Grapevine Online entitled Employers need to develop the next generation of leaders further emphasising the importance and need for training still.  The article references recent research and quotes from the Chartered Management Institute.  The post quotes Petra Wilton, Director of Policy and Research at the CMI, as saying that “…. organisations should look at other areas of the business before cutting back on training as skills development is essential if they are to be well placed when the economy eventually picks up. However, we realise that many organisations have now exhausted all other alternatives and the onus is now on the Government to step up to the mark and deliver support.”

There is no question that companies must be careful with their spending in the current environment; however, surely maintenance of key knowledge and skills is integral to company survival.  Companies are becoming more creative with knowledge sharing initiatives taking place, on the job training for less experienced members of staff and training groups of staff onsite rather than sending them away to a training course, avoiding the additional costs of travel and subsistence.  Here in training at TFPL we have seen an increase in the popularity of onsite course delivery when compared with periods in previous years.  Onsite delivery is certainly a cost effective option when you have small groups that can be trained all at once but what is the answer for those individuals that need to maintain their skills and, in some instances, cross train to cover other areas where cuts have been made?

We believe that to send one member of staff to a course is still beneficial as the learning that takes place can be passed on within the organisation.  Investment in personal development is seen as a key motivator to work and with people taking on extra responsibilities training should be seen as a cost effective way to keep up motivational levels within the workforce rather than perceived as an easy target for cost cutting.  To help with the situation of smaller budgets and training needs we have recently launched a savings and discount scheme to enable companies to spread their budgets still allowing individual staff to keep up their skills and cross train if necessary, called Learning Credits.  The scheme offers savings of approximately 30% off the standard course price and can be used by anyone on any course we run on the public access schedule.