We live in difficult times where many businesses are looking to preserve margins or just survive and so we can see why bad businesses cut training first.
Training costs come straight off the bottom line, they are a revenue expense. It’s just one of the ways that the accounting profession (and yes I am an accountant) has engineered accounts to discourage businesses from investing in people in the modern era.
Most people agree that training is an investment in the future and yet it is treated as an immediate expense and not capitalised. It has an immediate negative effect on cash flow and lending institutions generally won’t touch it as there is no security. To top it all off the employee might leave once they are trained.
For bad businesses with their eye just on the short term, training looks like a bad spend.
I say bad businesses because good businesses always find a way around the problem. There are literally thousands of free courses available. Everything from YouTube to edX. Then there are courses that cost very little. Many online courses are between £30 and £150 and many are excellent. £100 is the cost of a full tank of fuel for many vehicles these days.
The problem is not really the cost of training it is time. So many businesses are so poorly managed that people do not have time to do their existing job let alone take on extra training. If they do take on extra training they are often too tired or preoccupied with fire fighting to gain from the experience.
Training isn’t expensive but having an ineffective business is.
Finally, in the modern business environment, please don’t worry about trained staff leaving. Worry about untrained ones staying!!
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