Oct 23 2008 by Alistair Houghton, Liverpool Daily Post
As many of my friends and contacts in business acknowledge, the marketing budget can be the first thing to be cut when times get tough. However, that’s not always the case, as our current growth proves.
The second thing that is usually cut is the money allocated to training, which is still viewed by many organisations as a discretionary area of spend.
There’s always a cost issue attached to training, however big the budget, because it tends to be associated with an individual’s budget rather than being seen as for the good of the organisation as a whole.
However, just as research shows that companies that continue to invest in marketing activity through a recession are better placed to take advantage of the upturn, there is similar evidence to support continued investment in training. There’s a direct correlation between learning cultures and profitability and, of course, when a company is marketing itself to top new talent at the recruitment stage, training and development is critical to hiring and retaining those personnel.
Not making time is another issue for companies looking at training.
There’s little time to get training – but at what cost? Most creative industry companies and organisations will tell you as part of their pitch that they are “leading edge, innovative and progressive” using language like “ahead of the curve”, etc.
If you’re in the position of hiring a supplier from this sector, make sure you ask about their investment in training. They won’t be anywhere near as “progressive” as they profess to be, if they’re not making a considerable commitment in this area.
The best organisations understand this and, while they naturally desire value for money from their training budget, they know that careful targeting of that budget will yield more positive results than the more traditional scatter-gun approach.
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