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Many of you may know one of the great marketing quotes ‘half of my advertising budget is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half'. Much the same could be said of many training budgets. However, it is possible to work out where a lot of the waste comes from.

Do any of the following ever happen in your organisation?

• People go on presentation courses yet they never do presentations

• Time Management training is provided for managers who need to know how to communicate more effectively

• Managers are given extensive executive education when they can't manage to meet their main business targets

• Customer Service training is given to people who believe they are giving perfectly good customer service

I'm sure you could add more examples of your own. The point about this list is that the training itself may be excellent, but because it is not meeting the needs of the business, the business receives little value for its investment.

Rising to the Challenge

How do you rise to the challenge of making sure training focuses on the business needs?  Well, here are some quick suggestions:

• Do some business analysis BEFORE your training needs analysis
• Ask would be trainees how the BUSINESS will benefit from the individuals training
• If the training is frankly a reward, make that explicit and put the cost of training in the reward and recognition budget rather than the training budget (this concentrates the mind wonderfully)
• Make sure you understand the link between proposed training and the business goals (not just the HR goals)

Action

HR departments are usually quieter during July and August. Use this time to explicitly link your planned training with the business objectives for the rest of the year. If you need help from business managers, the very act of asking for help is likely to increase their belief in the value of the training.

Call us at 3C for help to create your LINE OF SIGHT from Organisational Key Performance Indicators to Training Outcomes, or see the last issue of Management Voice for further help.

This is the last Management Voice until September. If you are taking a break I hope you have a good time.

Management Voice Index
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